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Today is Boobquake, the day when freethinking ladies everywhere prove to the world that science isn’t boring and show misogynist Iranian clerics a thing or two. I mean, I’d be the last to doubt the power of breasts in the course of human events. But actually causing tectonic activity? I’d say that’s due for some myth-busting. So in the spirit of research, I reiterate my support for this endeavor, and the dawning of a new age of global enlightenment it portends. I’m sure the day will rack up some revealing results.

Now, as in all worthy scientific efforts, the results of your research should be made publicly available for peer review. Over at Skepchick, some worthwhile boobular myths are examined, none actually having to do with geological activity, but still. And so far, among our fine AXP family of readers, Jennifer Juniper has documented her data points. I’m sure we’ll enjoy more results as the day goes on, which, even if we don’t have an actual quake, will completely rock the world! So I’ll just let Mike and the Bots from MST3K lead us out in song…and enjoy your experimenting. I certainly will!

The headline reads, “Oklahoma Senate Passes Five Controversial Abortion Bills.” It should read, “Christian Theocrats Make Strides in the Promotion of Sadism, Manipulation, and Hypocrisy.” Let’s face it: if there’s a group in the U.S. that wants to harness the reproductive capacities of others, it’s Christians. In this case, the Christians elected by Christians in the Oklahoma State Senate has thought of various creative ways to screw with women who are convinced they’re not able to raise a child that they have in their womb. The Senators feel it’s their duty to demand potentially invasive medical tests to take “baby pictures” for the sole purpose of emotional manipulation. They feel it’d be a good idea to invade the personal lives of these women. And to add insult to injury, they’re making the patently false claim that they’re trying to help these women.

If Christians would really like to help women seeking an abortion, I have some suggestions. First, I have yet to see a Christian group put up the money (up front in escrow) that is necessary to raise a child to adulthood as a trade for a woman not to have an abortion. Why not? Christians want to have the power over a woman’s womb, but they run away like squealing vermin when the slightest mention of responsibility is mentioned. Their propaganda says that “God will provide.” Christians, why don’t you pony up the money and let your invisible friend reimburse you? We all know that will never happen. If you want to reduce abortions without being sadistic and manipulative bastards, try actually putting your money where your mouth is. If you don’t believe your bullshit propaganda, why should anyone?

Other suggestions:

Quit sabotaging contraceptive use, sex ed, and family planning. These things actually reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions. It’s obvious that reducing abortions is not the motivation of Christians. And please quit pretending to want to reduce abortions. Your obvious intent is to increase the number of believers in the world without having to pay for them.

Quit meddling in the lives and medical business of people you don’t even know. Nobody appreciates being fucked with. Duh.

Please understand that what you are doing is religious persecution. If you can’t show a bit of empathy for your victims, don’t expect anyone to give a shit about your religious rights when that glorious day comes when the shoe is on the other foot.

Learn a little empathy and humility. Just because you’ve sucked up to the invisible Big Thug in the sky doesn’t give you the right to be a little thugling. Anyone who has taken an objective look at your religion is aware is a load of crap. Keep it to yourself.

Concentrate first on fixing your festering boy fucking problem that shows how astoundingly incompetent your God is, and how amazingly gullible your fellow believers are for believing the amazing bullshit rationalizations used to excuse the problem.

Christians claim to follow an all-powerful God who has the ability to create people. If that’s true, why doesn’t your God make more gullible toadies if he really wants them? Seriously, aren’t there already enough in the world? The actions of Christians make it obvious that they know it’s a complete lie. They know they have to harness reproduction to make the next generation of sycophants. Unfortunately, with all it’s claimed power, Christendom plus God don’t have the power to control their own flock’s reproduction. Instead, they are hijacking the reproductive capacities of others via government control—and then foisting the expense onto them. This policy actually creates poverty and ignorance, which make it easier to instill religious belief in the next generation. If Christians want to run a breeding program, at least do it with your own people and your own money. And start paying your taxes. What you’re doing is not charity and deserves no public support.

In the spirit of Jesus’ saying of “Doing Unto Others,” I would like to suggest new law to be applied to Christians. Under the law, Christians would enjoy their Constitutional Right to free exercise, but upon entering their church, they would need to submit to a head x-ray (at their expense). The test would help them determine whether they had a brain and it would be purely for the benefit of the congregant. I would also suggest that any Christian in a leadership role, such as clergy or in government, submit to a weekly anal exam with the results published on the Internet. We want to make sure those assholes are working properly, don’t we?

I got a message on Facebook, and I hope the author won’t mind if I respond publicly, without identifying him.

The relevant paragraph asked:

I was wondering if you may know where I can find some material on Eastern Orthodox Christianity (critique mainly), as I’ve lately been confronted with a lot of opposition from orthodox Christians defending their faith during debates with the “oh, we’re not like them (catholics, protestants), our teachings bring only peace and prosperity and we didn’t have any Crusades, et cetera…” argument. But I’m more than certain that there actually were executions and burning at the stake ordered by the Orthodox Church (but I can’t find ’em!), so if you could give me a brief list (articles or sites) I’d be uber happy.

No, I don’t know of any specific works regarding Orthodox Christianity, although I’m sure you can find some. As I have recently grown fond of pointing out, there are 38,000 sects of Christianity. Debunking every one of them individually would be a pretty time consuming task. If I wanted to see the history of a particular church, I would probably start at Wikipedia and search outward from there.

Rather than reject the whole thing as a package deal, in your situation I would fall back on Matt’s favorite question: “Tell me what you believe, why you believe it, and why I should believe it?” It’s one thing to speak in generalities about how Christian offshoot X is “not like those other Christians”; it’s another thing entirely to identify the individual beliefs and try to defend them.

Personally, I couldn’t care less how many atrocities this or that group committed, as opposed to some other group. It’s not as interesting to me as finding out whether they make claims that are true, and how they think they know that the claims are true. What you’ll probably find on further investigation is that they believe many of the same unsupportable things all religions believe: That you can’t explain the complexity of life without a god, that somebody had to start it all, that it feels nicer to believe in a higher power, etc., etc.

If you can get them to bring these up, you are on much more solid ground. Instead of having to denounce an entire group based on the actions of some representative — which always makes you look mean! — you can go after the arguments on their merits. At that point, I’d refer to something like Iron Chariots, or Guy Harrison’s book, for ideas to respond to those claims.

An Iranian cleric has discovered the cause of catastrophic earthquakes, and it’s not plate tectonics after all. Nope, it’s women’s immodesty. According to Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi,

“Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes,” he explained.

Huh. Who knew my girls were so dangerous. I have to admit that when I first heard about this, my initial response was to keep them under wraps. I just didn’t want to be responsible for all that human suffering. Since then, Jen McCreight over at Blag Hag has convinced me that an experiment is necessary to test this new theory. The experiment must, of course, be photographed.

Boobquake 2010 will take place on April 26th. On that date, you are encouraged to show as much or as little cleavage as you have. If you prefer not to show cleavage, Mr. Sediqi warns that tight-fitting clothing will piss off Allah as well. He issues the following admonishment:

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes,” he said.

Let’s give this a fair test, shall we? I say we all get out there and rock the planet on April 26th. I should also point out that women going shirtless is technically not illegal in Austin – but feel free to engage in your preferred brand of immodesty and unrepentant degeneracy that day.

Oh, one last thing – science requires that observations be repeatable, so we might have to do this again next year. Just sayin’.

Seriously, how primitive in its development does one’s poor little brain stem have to be, to be the kind of person who interprets, in this day and age, natural disasters as some form of divine wrath? Seriously, I can understand cave-dwelling hominids cowering in their caves from a thunderstorm thinking this way. But in a 21st century civilized, technological, post-Enlightenment society? Get on board the short bus, tardboy!

Who else can we add to this parade of thermostupid? Oh, how about the reliably batshit crazy Brannon Howse? Here we see Brannon exercising his considerable prophecy skills to predict God’s next meteorological snit.

Brannon believes America may very well see a serious crisis this week such as flooding in the North East for Obama’s treatment of Israel in the past few days and particularly for his treatment of Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Why does Brannon say this?

Because Brannon is a paste-eating fuckheaded moron, that’s why. The above was posted March 30. Anyone remember the news reports of flooding in the northeast the following week? Nope, me neither.

So Rush Limbaugh woke up yesterday in his palace on Geidi Prime, and while he was being hoisted by his catamites into the gravity-support harness he’d been given by the Baron Harkonnen as a hand-me-down, it occurred to the least drug-benumbed of his brain cells to think, “You know, I’m tired of everyone in the galaxy thinking Pat Robertson is a more evil piece of shit than I am. Let alone the Baron!” So on his radio show that day, he made the awesomely ludicrous suggestion that his Republican God caused the volcano in Iceland to erupt because He was pissed off over Obamacare.

Truly, there is no bottom to the level of rank idiocy defecated across the right-wing airwaves.

Thing is, if Rush was angling to take Pat Robertson’s “Most Evil Piece of Shit in the Galaxy” crown from him (with its lifetime supply of mélange and a little Oxycontin on the side), he lamed out. Because as evil as Pat is, you’ve gotta give the old boy props for backing that evil up with balls so large they exceed most known Kuiper Belt Objects in sheer mass. Over more than half a century, Pat has leveled up his evil to such a degree, he could calmly exploit a disaster that killed a quarter of a million people, informing them as if it were the most natural thing to say that it was all their own fault for making pacts with some imaginary devil.

On the other hand, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (I had to copy-paste that, and don’t even challenge me to pronounce it), while it has wrecked everyone’s flight plans and necessitated some serious evacuations, has apparently had a death toll so low I cannot find it recorded anywhere. (Maybe someone else’s Google-fu will be better.) So Rush was careful to pick a disaster where hardly anyone’s died, avoiding the universal condemnation that Pat got, even from Shepard Smith on Fox News. Though if anyone did condemn Rush, he’d just whine about the leftist socialist media ganging up on him again.

So you’re just too lame to be the ultimate in supervillainy you were hoping for, Rush. But don’t worry. You are still a total piece of shit and all decent people hate you. You’re welcome.

So there’s this Christian pop singer cutie who’s just come back from a seven-year hiatus to reveal she’s gay. Unlike Ted Haggard, she’s totally cool with her gayosity, so all props to her! But I wonder if the title of her new album Letting Go really means what she wants it to mean. Sweetheart, we’re all very happy for you, but religion is not your friend! The hate you’re about to get from those who pride themselves on how devout they are is something you just don’t need. Just be proud you’ve found the music in you, and move on.

…and originally I thought it would be cute to waste it in postmodern fashion simply informing you of that fact. But then I realized that would basically be an exercise in irony so banal and obvious it would tip over into mere douchebaggery. So I’m much happier to spend this post in the valuable act of informing you of an exciting legal development in the ongoing fight against the theocratizing (that’s probably not a word, but screw it) of America.

A federal judge, Barbara Crabb, in Wisconsin has ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. I simply cannot wait for the 700 Club and Whirled Nut Daily to sound off on this, let alone the raging paranoiacs over at Christian Worldview Network, who will no doubt rush to blame the ruling on the baby-eating communopinkosocialistical policies of Barack 666Satan666 Obama, despite a flack for the administration assuring the pearl-clutchers that “President Obama intends to recognize a National Day of Prayer.” Naturally, we get a sound bite from fundie legal beagle Jay Sekulow, who distorts on cue:

“It is unfortunate that this court failed to understand that a day set aside for prayer for the country represents a time-honored tradition that embraces the First Amendment, not violates it,” ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow said in a statement.

Well, you see, Jay, the thing is the court did recognize that. It’s just that unlike you, the court also recognized it is the prerogative of private citizens to determine for themselves when and where and how they set aside days of prayer. It is not the privilege of the government to do that for them. See the difference? Citizens deciding their own religious observations: within 1st Amendment. Government promoting religious practice on specified day: violation of same. Come on, Jay, IANAL, and you are, and even I know that rudimentary difference.

But that is, of course, what Sekulow and the fundagelicals want: to be able to use the power and authority of the government to impose their brand of Christianity™ upon the nation. Yes, these are the same people who lose their shit and wail about “Soshullisum” when “BIG Government” tries to pass health care reform that makes it harder for your insurance company to sodomize you while rifling your wallet at will. But when it comes to pushing Jesus like he came in dime bags at the playground, oh, does the right ever love Big Government then.

Gotta heat up some popcorn for this cagematch, kids. It’ll be a good one.

[Alliance Defense Fund] Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster…argued the day gives opportunity “for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith – and does not promote any particular religion or form of religious observance.”

That might have been the intent and the spirit of the NDOP on general principles. In practice, reality is much different. The Texas Freedom Network has cataloged incidents of Christians excluding non-Christians from formal NDOP events. Mother Jones also has an account of James Dobson’s (surprise surprise) bullying of those worshiping the wrong invisible man, and pluralism.org has a detailed account of Christians using legal muscle to keep a Hindu from participating in an NDOP event in Troy, MI. The idea that the NDOP has ever really been ecumenical is as transparently full of shit as Fox News’s “fair and balanced” slogan.

General public is very vulnerable, what ever guidance sounds helpful, whether it is not rational, people like it.they are created to believe this.

On the contrary you are what is in your memory in your sub conscious , that what u are projecting in the mundane world.any fantasy you think can be real in your thought, even in the mundane world,.if you believe there are millions of earth and so oare you, in millions ,so what is real you don’t know, when you merge with which reality.

your mind is a fascinating mechanism processes millions of information every second , we r only aware of 100’s. nothing to loose in you believe, lot to loose being a sceptic, you can be popular in tv, media in paper that what y what. huh!

Holy scriptures do mislead people, all are misinterpreted, mostly corrupted is the Biblical stories, and the Vedas.

I can challenge you, with prove that thoughts are cosmic energy, they can influence you and your surroundings

Think for a while then conclude.

You have nothing to loose being a believer.beliver in your self, your heart. The rest will come out automatically, that is why we have dreams, dilutions .illusions, hallucinations, these ate only medical terms, but also a media for human to interact with parallel reality.

I think Holmes would do better getting a handle on this reality, personally.